Kid's Stuff

Some Saturday thoughts on things everyday, not political, nor particularly cultural, much less artistic. A little break from Futurballa's normal subjects.

We were doing a rather late spring cleaning here at Casa Futurballa this morning and decided to clear out some old videos. You know, the random collection of pre-viewed Blockbuster and cheap Target tapes that one accumulated in the time before DVD. Now I Netflix any movie I want to see casually and only buy the "keepers". Speaking of which, there are a couple of good ones coming out this week. Chicago, which was the best date movie of last year, imho, and Bowling for Columbine, which may be worth having for the added fun of the Michael Moore interview on the DVD where he gives some more insight into the infamous Oscar's speech. But, as Mort Sahl used to say, I digress.

I got the job today of being house meanie by telling our college aged daughter that she had to go through the videos and let us know just what she wanted to keep and what she could let go of. Well letting go was a challenge, which got me to thinking about kids and their stuff and their space.

When I moved into the house the kids were adolescents. I had been living abroad for many years before meeting their mother and did not have a ton of possessions, but anything I brought into the house was met with a chorus of, "does he have to bring that here" and "I like our stuff better" (please insert whiny tone yourself... thank you).

At the same time everything in their lives has some kind of emotional meaning that goes way beyond the intrinsic value of a pre-viewed copy of Dunston Checks In. It was painful for her, but she was a trooper and actually got rid of a few things.

Christmas is the worst with these flights of nostalgia. Christmas at Grandma's conjures up visions of creeping out in their P.J.s on Christmas morning and tons of cousins and aunts and uncles. However, each year the family is more spread out and fewer cousins show up at Grandma's. As each year passes, the kids seem to forget that last year was a bit dissappointing, and start anew waxing nostalgic for the spirit of Christmas past. It is as if somewhere around the middle of November a Pavlovian response is elicited by the sound of sleigh bells or Perry Como. Acutally it's probably not Perry Como, that would be me, but you know what I mean.

Actual insights into the why kids attach more emotional value to things that adults see no value in are not provided by Futurballa. We are just an observer, but I did find it striking just what a hard time they have with the whole change thing. As we get older, I guess we just get used to the idea that things change and a Pauly Shore video is, well, a Pauly Shore video.